Simon Moyse: Is the Champo a better place to watch football than the EPL?

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If anyone needed any proof that we live in an insane world, one look at the list of teams in the Premier League is pretty solid proof.

Bournemouth? Watford? Brighton? Cardiff? Burnley? Huddersfield? Fulham? All in the top flight – at the same time???

How this weirdness happened is anyone’s guess, but one rather smashing upshot of it is that the Championship is quite the banging division these days, full of big clubs with big resources and big fanbases.

Far from the cloggers’ paradise of yesteryear, the division is loaded with quality players playing good football.

In fact, you could make a decent argument that the Champo is a better place to watch footie than the Prem at the moment, with bumper crowds, huge competition and a high level of unpredictability.

Sure, the Prem may be the best league in the world blah blah blah, but seriously, ticket prices are insane, and what do the teams outside the top six really have to play for?

You ask Newcastle fans how much fun the Prem is right now, watching their Mike Ashley money-making scheme-team going down the drain. Probably about as much as their deadly rivals Sunderland are having in League Two. Yes siree, the Champo is a fun place to be. So Ipswich – let’s see if we can hang around there a bit longer, eh?

This season has been a typically bonkers one in the Championship so far, with a mere nine points separating 1st place from 14th after fifteen games.

Crazy results are a weekly occurrence. Looking down the table, you could make a decent argument for any one of probably sixteen teams making it up to the Premier League come the end of the season. It really is that wide-open.

Given that my team Ipswich is, ahem, not one of those sixteen, I feel in a decent spot to give an objective-ish view of who might end the season up near the top.

So over the next two days, I’ll look at every side in the division ans sort the wheat from the Canaries.

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About Author

Born in London, Simon went to his first Ipswich Town game at the age of 7 and has seen Ipswich play at over 50 different stadiums in the UK, as well as in Moscow, Russia, in UEFA Cup competition. He lived in Seattle from 2004 to 2017 and followed the Sounders upon their introduction to MLS in 2009, and also wrote about the Sounders for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He started his own site, 'Are you Serious, Englishman?’ in early 2016, and also writes live music reviews for Bristol In Stereo magazine.